Enclave - First Person Dungeon Crawl

Enclave is a first person dungeon crawl which began on the XBox and GameCube before coming out for the PC.

First, the plot. You're in a medieval village. A giant chasm has split you (the "good guys") from the Outlanders (the "bad guys"). In the console versions you must play the good guy missions before taking on the bad guys. On the PC you can start with either.

I really think playing the good guys first made more sense, because you get to meet and know characters that you then play on the bad guy side. There's more "payback" feeling. But some people can't stand being good and want to just be bad.

The graphics are nice, but not spellbinding. There are many other games out there that I can think of that are more polished or authentic feeling. Still, you do get the stone and wood feel for the medieval areas. You work from level to level, gaining gold, gaining experience, buying new weapons and armor.

There are a few puzzles and a lot of hack and slash. Which leads to the next issue with the console versions. You can't save mid-mission which means if you hit something you're having problems with, you keep restarting the entire thing. So then you try another armor combination, or another weapon and go through it all over again. It can get pretty tedious. The PC version lets you save mid-mission.

On the up side, this means that you can easily play the game for weeks and still have challenges waiting for you. You can go back and replay levels, looking for the treasure you missed. You can try for different weapon or armor to see how it might help or hurt. If you race through to find the ending, you're missing the whole point of the game. It's meant to be enjoyed, not to be trashed and then thrown out.